Jubilee tube extension nearing tenth birthday

With the tenth anniversary of the grey line extension approaching, Transport for London is on the verge of installing a signalling system which will boost capacity by 33 per cent over the next ten years, and reduce journey times by 22 per cent.

Chief operating officer Howard Collins said: "Without the Jubilee line, Canary Wharf as a financial centre would not be what it is today.

"Now what is important is the upgrading of the line. It will get even busier in the long term as Canary Wharf grows and changes.

"The signalling systems are coming in later this year. As you're standing on the platform you see a train every two-and-a-half to three minutes.

"In future it will be about one-and-a-half to two minutes, and that could make a huge difference in absorbing these people and taking them to the destinations they want to go."

Work on extending the Jubilee Line began in late 1993, when then-Prime Minister John Major drove the first pile at Canary Wharf. It was opened in stages, with the Stratford to North Greenwich stretch launching in May 1999 and other stations including Canary Wharf following in September.

The link has altered the landscape of many of the stops on the route, none more so than North Greenwich.

Mr Collins said: "When we were designing the Jubilee line, North Greenwich wasn't even there.

"Late on, the Government made a decision to link this derelict gas works site. I remember a late 90s visit and it felt like a moonscape. It was just a brown field of dust.

"The O2 is now the largest music venue in the world, and who would have thought that when they were calling the Dome a white elephant?"

The final station opened at Westminster ten days before the turn of the millennium.

Mr Collins said: "We had two special trains with VIPS such as the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury in them, going to the event at the Millennium Dome.

"I remember the managing director saying, 'This could be a serious career-limiting move. If this train doesn't get to the Dome, none of us will probably be in a job tomorrow'."

However, the real importance of the line was in linking areas such as Canary Wharf to London. A 2004 TfL study found that the line had increased local property values by £2billion.

He said: "It used to be an area that was completely reliant on the DLR, which by that point was packed out and overloaded.

"When I worked there in the mid '90s there were a couple of expensive shirt shops and a sandwich shop.

"The malls hadn't opened back then. You had to go quite a distance to get your lunch. If you wanted to get some lightbulbs, you had to go as far as Poplar.

"It grew over time. For the original workers, we felt it had really taken off when a Tesco opened."

The extension involved opening 11 new stations and creating 16 kilometres of new track, crossing the Thames four times.

He said: "It was one of the most challenging networks to build. Canary Wharf was a relatively brownfield site.

"The real challenge was London Bridge and Westminster where you're dealing with medieval sewers, Victorian pipes and uncharted electrical pipes. Building was like being on the Krypton Factor. It was an amazing feat.

"I was most proud of the fact that there were no employee fatalities. It was unheard of.
"There was a huge emphasis on safety. If you didn't have your safety boots or hat on, you were sacked.

"There were some terrible tragedies in the construction of the Channel Tunnel and even Canary Wharf itself, and we were obsessed by that."

As the project burrowed through the ground in East London, a few relics from history rose to the surface for the first time in centuries.

Mr Collins said: "We found some Roman mosaic walls, and a medieval abbey was discovered in Stratford.

"It stopped work for a while, but they were great moments in many ways. The biggest moment was when the whole thing got connected up. We ran the first train from Green Park to Stratford. It was a long haul but it felt like such a great achievement at the time."

The Jubilee line extension will enter its second decade in September, and finds itself in a different London to the one in which it emerged.

But will the 24-hour city ever get a 24-hour rail system?

Mr Collins said: "It's difficult to run all-night considering the amount of pounding the system gets for 20 hours a day.

"We may have the opportunity in future to run some sort of 24-hour service. We've done it for some events.

"We certainly believe so, and the mayor has aspirations to run some of the tube 24-hours, but there is a lot of work to do before we get to that position.

"There will be opportunities to see how that works. The tube is very difficult to maintain as well as run services through the night. We need a bit of downtime to make the necessary checks to the system.